Philip Roth gives Yaddo talk

Updated 8:48 am, Tuesday, May 20, 2014

NEW YORK (AP) — In what may have been his last remarks at a public gathering, Philip Roth has accepted Yaddo's first ever Artist Medal, saying he's grateful for his time at the venerable retreat in the 1960s.

The event Wednesday night came a week after he gave a reading at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y, vowing it was "absolutely the last appearance" he would "make on any public stage, anywhere," according to The New York Times.

Roth did not refer to those remarks on Wednesday. But when The Associated Press emailed his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, asking whether Roth had given his last public talk, Wylie responded, "That's his last."

The 81-year-old Roth previously has said he's through writing books. His last novel, "Nemesis," came out in 2010.